Librivox recording of The Secret Passage by Fergus Hume.
Read by LibriVox Volunteers.

Excellent murder mystery. On September 9, 1905, the NY Times Saturday Review of Books described this book as follows: "That painstakingly ingenious person, Fergus Hume, has devised another of his hide-and-seek, jack-o'-lantern murder mysteries. It begins with a queer and rich old woman found stabbed to death in her chair and not a clue to the murderer. Then so many clues turn up that even the story-book detective is bewildered. Then nearly everybody turns out to be somebody else under an alias, and all the clues lead nowhere..." (summary by Dawn Larsen and J.M. Smallheer)

M4B audiobook of complete book

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This audio is part of the collection: The LibriVox Free Audiobook Collection
It also belongs to collections: Audio Books & Poetry; Community Audio

Artist/Composer: Fergus Hume
Date: 2008-09-01
Source: Librivox recording of a public-domain text
Keywords: librivox; audiobooks; mystery; murder

Creative Commons license: Public Domain

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Reviewer: Timothy Ferguson - - December 19, 2011
Subject: Doesn't work as a puzzle style mystery: doesn't work as a thriller
I'm having a hard time nominating appeal factors in this book. There's a lot to not like: racism, banging on about the hook noses and dark eyebrows of Jews. Good people look handsome, bad people look like bad people. Servants are innately stupid as a class, as you the reader are reminded. A lot of carry on which makes very little sense (a woman who loves a man incredibly, but couldn't possibly marry without her mother's consent?)

It's sad: he was Australia's first mystery writer and so I wanted to like him, but...this just isn't a recommendable book. Even among Hume's books, this is a weak one.

Reviewer: ListeninginChicago - - January 21, 2010
Subject: Bit too many twists and turns?
I enjoyed listening to this book, and it does have quite a few twists and turns, but by the end I was a bit dizzy with all the unforeshadowed revelations.

Sound quality was good on all the sections, but this is a collaborative project and while some of the readers are excellent - others are not so polished for various reasons. I personally like Lucy Burgoyne's reading - yes, I grant you that her intonation is very level and some may see that as a negative, but her diction is always clear, her tempo is good and I never have to ask "what did she say?" But that's beside the point as she does not read any of the sections on this project.

I'm giving this an average rating because I have listened to equally good writing read by a more consistent batch of readers elsewhere on Librivox. So, listen to the book for the story, and if the reading quality leaves you disappointed, check out "The Millionaire Baby" which is a solo project by BeadCrazyDawn - the very same "Dawn in Minnesota" who did such an excellent job reading the first seven chapters of this book.

Reviewer: benefitsingers - - May 26, 2009
Subject: Good story lots of twists
This is a good story lots of plot twists, keeps you guessing. Some of the narration was not that great. Could someone please tell Lucy Burgoyne to do some other volunteer work for Librivox. Her narration is truly horrible. There was another reader on this one that was not much better, all the rest were very good. I loved the lady with the accent, normally I don't like accents but she did a great job, her name is redabrus, good work!

Reviewer: trail_runnr - - November 9, 2008
Subject: Lots of Mystery
M Zane has provided enough details about the story. I agree with his 5 star rating. This is one that I will most likely listen to again. It was very enjoyable with all of its twists and turns.

Reviewer: mikezane - - October 30, 2008
Subject: A well-written mystery
An older woman is found murdered in a locked room. Her niece Juliet, engaged to be married to Cuthbert, inherits her fortune. But Juliet's mother, upon learning of the aunt's death says nope, no more engagement, you aren't marrying Cuthbert. What does the one have to do with the other? And how does a group of counterfeiters fit into all of this? Lots of twists to keep you guessing till the last. Enjoy!